General Dahlia Chat 2024

Krista · 2024-01-05T01:50:48+00:00

When do we grow up and stop ordering more tubers than we can possibly fit into the space we have, for the next season? Is that something I can look forward t...

Teddahlia

Another Eugene show design.
Nice design but it has one major fault. Can you guess what it is?

blown_dry

Teddahlia Poison oak?

Bessie

Teddahlia the water element is separate from the floral design? As an aside, the flower on the left is not pointing to the center, it's floating.

calico20hill

At 78 I am doing pretty well with that. But I have spent many many years getting to this point. I've done the thousand dahlia garden. And would likely still be doing it if not for the "I need some help in the garden today", and the "Could you please carry these buckets to the work room?" questions that were not happily received. Now I Am limited to 6 raised beds 20 by 4'. And then there are grow bags :-)...

calico20hill

Sorry, didn't mean to land this in the middle of a different discussion. Not sure where the question is that I was answering now...

Juliarugula

blown_dry I thought it was poison oak for a second too! 🤣

Teddahlia

No. More guesses.

SteveM

Teddahlia There should be an odd number of each element in the design. So, there should be one more (or one less) bloom of Weston Spanish Dancer. I like Amanda's guess better.

bloomhjelm

Needs more than one of the bigger variety dahlia? Needs more Hollyhills?

Teddahlia

Designs are supposed to have more than one "texture" of greens. At least two and three different "greens" just to be sure. For example, if the person used New Zealand Flax leaves that are very long and pointed, the line to the top of the design would be finished by the flax leaves and to the right where the flowers extend to the right a flax leaf would continue past the flower. The monochromatic oak leaves need something to break them up. Classically, baby's breath might be used. Actually, this is very good arrangement otherwise.

blown_dry

Teddahlia Now that I look at it again, I very much see your point.

Teddahlia

You are all invited to the potluck picnic and judging session at the trial garden at Swan Island Dahlias today at 3PM. Supposed to be sunny and about 74F. Barbecue is being catered by Busters Barbecue. Usually, Nick Gitts of Swan Island will show us their new introductions for next year and do a question and answer session. I will be judging the entries at the trial garden before I get to eat. Perhaps I will post picture or two for those of you that cannot make it.

Bessie

Teddahlia Please do take pictures! I'd love to see what's happening at Swan Island. Thank you.

Juliarugula

Teddahlia I’d love to see the SwanIsland trial garden and say hi to you and Margaret in person! It would be a bit of a commute from Indiana though. I’m looking forward to your photos!

Teddahlia

Teddahlia Judging and potluck at Swan Island Dahlias went well. I judged about 7 varieties and with all the interruptions and side conversations, that took from 2:45PM to 5:00PM. I was not able to take pictures of entries and some people who entered a variety or two are probably grateful as some did not look good. Yes, there were some good ones too but what is frustrating is to see a nice one that did not have enough flowers to judge the entry. I was told that in a week or so I may be called upon to drive the 11 miles from my house to the trial garden(nice country drive) and judge them. Potluck went well and I talked with several old friends and new friends. Noni who posts on this site and I had a nice conversation and we did the thing that young people(no we are not young people) do and each of us showed pictures of "our babies" from our cell phones. In the old days people would take out their wallet and show pictures of their wife and kids and now hundreds of picture are on those cell phones. Nick Gitts did not do a talk and did not bring the new introductions to the potluck meeting. He did sit at my table and we talked about things for about 45 minutes and it was a lot of dahlia breeding talk and cultural talk and stuff like that. Their dahlia festival that runs 5 days a week for two months wears him out and the two days off are working days for him to take care of the dahlias. Pictures of the judging at the trial garden were posted by a nice person on the Portland Dahlia Society Facebook site.

Teddahlia

Of course, I can extend an invitation at the last minute to people so far away that they would have to rent a jet plane to get here in time. I hope I remember to take pictures but when you are surrounded by 450,000- dahlia plants I get light headed.

calico20hill

Swan Island Dahlias was so beautiful yesterday..rows and rows of dahlias in bloom as far as the eye could see...and then the sunset started as we drove homeward. With all the new dahlias to see it is sweet to get a reminder of just how beautiful Swan Island's tried and true varieties are when planted en mass!

I had lovely conversations with several new folks to our group and my engineer husband found others who enjoyed talking about non dahlia experiences (wink). After having to miss so many meetings it was great to see other club members and catch up and always great to spend some time with my first mentor, Ted.

And yes, the trial garden had some lovely dahlias in it. I did not pick out any particular ones to fall in love with because the team was still judging and I did not want to be in their way. There were sure some fine blooms though!

Teddahlia

Noni left out that we commented that her husband was now the bionic man with his recent knee replacement and all the other "replacement parts".

calico20hill

And there is probably nothing you could call thim that would give him more pleasure :-)

Juliarugula

Not planning on buying cuttings now to overwinter (indoor plants are not my forte), but I browsed the Kennedy Hill winter cutting sale just to see what cool varieties they had.

I noticed that they had two separate listings, at different prices, for “Vecca Lucia” and “Veca Lucia”. Is this their way of implying they purchased one variety as Vecca Lucia and it turned out to be an unknown ID (sort of like how some seller will sell a variety as “NOT Variety X”)? Or are there actually two named varieties with such close spellings?

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